


Letters to Noonvale

by imaginary_golux



Series: October Ficlet Challenge [43]
Category: Redwall Series - Brian Jacques
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 13:00:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12458310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: Prompt 22: One character is secretly writing about the other.Gonff learns something about his friend.Prompt and beta by my Best Beloved, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.





	Letters to Noonvale

“Hey, Martin, it’s a beautiful day, what’re you doing holed up in this dusty place?” Gonff says, poking his nose into the tiny windowless room that the Abbess has been using to store scrolls. Martin rolls up the bit of paper he was writing on and tucks it away in his belt-pouch carefully.

“Just...remembering,” he says.

“Oh, well, remembering,” says Gonff, and loops an arm around Martin’s shoulders, steering him through the halls out into the grassy area near the someday-orchard. “Where’s the fun in that? Timballisto said he could show us some sort of new dance, but only if you helped.”

“Sure,” Martin says, and heads for Timballisto, who grins and leans in close to whisper with him. Gonff slides unobtrusively around a corner and opens the parchment he snuck from Martin’s belt-pouch, scanning it quickly. Then he takes a deep breath and swallows back tears.

Gonff watches the dance - some sort of fast jig with a lot of twirling, it looks complicated and like something he wants to learn, actually - and hugs Martin in congratulations when it’s over, slipping the paper back into his belt-pouch without Martin’s ever noticing. He’s not called King of Thieves for nothing, after all. And he doesn’t say anything about until much later that evening, when he’s curled up with Columbine in a quiet corner outside, watching the stars.

He confesses what he did - Columbine just sighs, having learned by now that trying to convince Gonff not to steal things is almost as impossible as trying to convince trees not to have leaves - and then, more quietly, what he read.

“He’s writing to the mouse he loved,” Gonff murmurs. “Telling her about the Abbey we’re building, and how much she would have liked it. About how it reminds him a little of the place she came from.” He takes a deep breath. “The place she’s buried.”

“Oh... _hellgates_ ,” Columbine says quietly, and thinks for a long moment. “You mustn’t tell anyone else,” she says at last. “That’s...that’s not ours to know unless he tells us.”

“No,” Gonff agrees, and wraps her up in his arms, holding her tightly. She clings back. “But - the thing that gives me hope - he wrote to her to say he’s learning to be happy here, with us, with the Dibbuns and the Abbey and the peace he won.”

“ _Oh_ ,” says Columbine, and bursts into tears, and Gonff is not ashamed to admit that he cries right along with her, holding her close, as they weep for their dear friend’s pain.

**Author's Note:**

> So Best Beloved and I are doing an October ficlet challenge. We each generated a list of pairings we'd be willing to write and a list of prompts we wanted the other person to write, and then traded prompts lists without knowing what the other person's pairing lists were. We'll be doing a ficlet each every day in October. Should be fun!
> 
> I am, as ever, imaginarygolux on tumblr.


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